Political parties use violence, and ‘nothing is going to change this’, is believed by 51% [Q58C]. 45% (by far the biggest single opinion block) believe that the elections will suffer intervention by the security forces [Q54C]. 38% – by far the biggest single block of opinion – believe that the election will not deliver a clear presidential winner [Q54E]. 43% believe that elections will end power-sharing, but a substantial 23% declare a ‘don’t know’ [Q54G]. 46% disagreed with the statement that ‘this time around, there will be nothing to fear’ [Q58B]. Zimbabweans are divided on whether elections will end power-sharing (43%), whilst 23% don’t know whether it will or not [Q54G]. 42% reckon that the counting processes of the election votes will not be transparent; 19% ‘did not know’ [Q54D]. It is widely believed that the results will not be accepted by all political parties [Q54F]. 6.2 Order and timing of constitution-making and elections Zimbabweans feel strongly (73%) [Q15] that the order of (further) constitution-making and elections should strictly be: first the finalisation of the constitution and then elections. Only 17% reckoned that ‘elections can be brought forward, whether the new constitution is finalised or not’ [Q15]. The next presidential and parliamentary elections should be held in 2011, is the opinion of 46% of the survey respondents [Q14]. This is not a majority opinion, but it is by far the largest single opinion block on the issue (Table 17). If one transfers the 11% that stated in December 2010 that elections needed to be done ‘immediately’ to 2011, it is roughly 57% that want elections in 2011 – albeit not unconditionally so in that they first want the draft constitution and referendum that will put the constitution out to popular verdict. Immediately 10.6 Immediately 31 Table 17: Desired timing for the next election, 2010 survey (%) 2011 2012 2013 Other 45.9 8.0 7.8 12.9 Desired timing for the next election, 2009 survey (%) Within 1 year Within 2 years Within 3 years Within 5 years 25 17 5 15 Don’t know 14.8 Don’t know 7 Question: ‘In your opinion, when should the next presidential and parliamentary elections be held?’ [Q14A] 52

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